It’s been over a hundred years since we last saw a full solar eclipse in the United States, and the fact that it’s occurring in Leo during an incredibly turbulent and chaotic month is no mistake. Eclipses are always game changers because of the drastic energy that they bring into play. Think of it like watching a play: just before it starts everything goes black.

The eclipse provides the darkness, and the brilliant sun is that show-stopping entrance that we’ve all been hesitantly believing in.

Eclipses run in seasons and this is tied closely to what was going on back in February when we saw our last set. During the past six months, we have been guided more closely as to what those lessons are. Perhaps they are about a change in career or life path, or they might be related to our romantic relationships and the truth of who we love, or they might be more simply related to our search for happiness.

It could be a lot of things, but with Leo, the sign of passion, on the scene and Mercury Retrograde in the picture, most of us will see some changes in the romance department. Okay, well, not just changes but rather game changers.

How many of us would prefer the stagnation of monotony that risk losing it all? In reality, it sometimes becomes easier to talk ourselves into the safety nets of life, but if we keep doing that, instead of living we end up merely surviving. And for what? To remain attached to the ideal of how we thought life was supposed to go?

New moons are powerful. We can’t see them, as the moon is completely in shadow during this time, but it is still there and still powerfully affecting us and our choices.

The reason that so many are heralding around the new moon total eclipse on August 21 is that besides it being a total solar eclipse, it’s also a new moon which means a plethora of new beginnings. During this phase of the moon we are asked to think critically and plant the seeds for what we hope to grow during the next lunation phase, but because these eclipses tie back to those in February, it’s also about something coming full circle, not completing, and gaining the insight over the bigger picture.

In life we often wish things were cut and dry — love and relationships specifically. Yet, instead, we are met with ambiguity, not necessarily over feelings but in how to process those emotions and how they translate (or don’t) into real-life decisions and situations.

Life is a never-ending spiral of experiences and each time we venture further and further down we gain greater clarity about the reasons and lessons for those occurrences. This is just one more loop on the spiral.

Even a week before the eclipse, it is normal to feel its energies and see the unexpected change and turn of events that it will cause. But it won’t stop just because the eclipse is over on the 22nd, either.

From now until the beginning of September, most likely around the 5th, we will be in the midst of the eclipse tornado.

The really important thing to remember this month is that none of these changes are spontaneous, even if it appears that way to outsiders. Rather, this month is all about what has been growing beneath the surface, out of view of anyone else, possibly even ourselves. But now, it’s time to bloom.

This eclipse is really only putting us in touch with who we really are beneath the masks that we have chosen to wear for the comfort of others. It’s going to be challenging us just like a soulmate lover would do in and out of the bedroom.

And just like them, the goal this month isn’t to make things more difficult but to help awaken us to ourselves. The status quo won’t be accepted, any self-deception will be cast away, and underneath it all we’ll see that sometimes things really do need to fall apart in order for others to simply fall together.

There’s a lot at stake this month, specifically our personal truth.

We can spend our entire lives trying to create the lives we think we should live only to realize that maybe we had it all wrong. Maybe there is a greater story trying to break its way into existence.

Now, all we have to do is get out of the way and let the magic create our reality.

Check out the video below for more information on how solar and lunar eclipses work:

Kate Rose is an artist, free thinker, lover, writer, passionate yogi, teacher, life coach, mentor, mother, rule breaker and rebel. She truly believes the best is yet to come and waits, with bated breath, to see what it may hold.